Apple executives talk about the history and future of Apple's fully-developed 'M1' chip

The Independent , a British news media, interviews a person in charge of software, hardware and marketing of Apple's proprietary Mac chip ' M1 '. It seems that some people are saying that the M1 chip, which has achieved a big leap in CPU / GPU performance up to twice that of existing chips, is an exaggeration, but how did you achieve that performance? , It talks in detail about what kind of path the Mac will take in the future.

Apple executives on new MacBook, M1 chip and the future of its products | The Independent
https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/apple-m1-interview-macbook-release-specs-ports-reviews-b1721844.html

In June 2020, Apple announced plans to use its own ' Apple Silicon ' instead of Intel processors for Macs in WWDC 2020 . And on Wednesday, November 11, 2020, we announced the 'M1' chip, which will be the first Apple Silicon. The M1 chip is the world's first 5nm process-manufactured PC chip with 'the world's best CPU per watt' and 'the world's fastest integrated graphics.' 'No other chip upgrade has ever been so significant on a Mac,' Apple said of the innovation with the M1 chip.

Introducing the first Apple Silicon 'M1' chip, equipped with the world's fastest CPU manufactured by 5nm process-GIGAZINE

The Independent was interviewed by Greg Joswiack, Vice President of Product Marketing, Craig Federighi, Vice President of Software Engineering, and John Ternus, Vice President of Hardware Engineering. Ternus said the M1 chip isn't just a 'crystal of futuristic design,' it's 'the foundation of all of Apple's upcoming technologies.' In addition, the M1 chip not only supports Apple's future, but is also a crystal of past achievements. It is said that the M1 chip is packed with Apple's trial and error of 'what should be computing?' That has continued for decades since the introduction of the iPhone or the appearance of the Macintosh in 1984. I have.

Apple has been accused of 'giving up the Mac' because it has focused on the iPhone, which is the largest source of revenue so far. But Apple hasn't given up on the Mac, the Independent says, as evidenced by the M1 chip and the future it envisions.

On the other hand, some people see Apple's announcement of the M1 chip as an 'exaggeration.' Normally, even if a new PC is released, the processing speed of the CPU and GPU will be about 20 to 30% faster than the previous model, but when Apple compares the M1 chip with the existing latest notebook PC chip, the CPU It claims to be up to twice (200%) better in both performance and GPU performance.

As a result, many people are skeptical about Apple's M1 chip. The Independent points out that because many people 'did not expect' computers to take such a big step up. In fact, it seems that the evolution of the M1 chip was taken as a surprise within Apple, and Joswiack said, 'I couldn't believe it,' Federighi said, 'I overshoot.' According to Mr. Ternus, the M1 chip was initially developed by only some teams, but as the development progressed, unexpected passion and excitement spread to other teams.

Federighi understands that some users see the announcement of the M1 chip as a hype, but 'experiences the same experience that surprised us when we first experienced the M1 chip. We are honestly surprised at the M1 chip, which is the result of our own work, and we are really happy to be able to give it to our customers. ' It shows that he is quite confident in the workmanship.

'Some users may refrain from buying an Apple Silicon-powered Mac for one or two generations,' said The Independent, as the M1 chip is Apple's first Mac-developed chip. 'As of yesterday, there was no problem buying a Mac with an M1 chip,' Federighi said. 'Maybe our employees were flooded into the Apple Store.' I returned it as a joke.

According to Federighi, the marketing team took a year to come up with the chip name 'M1'. Regarding the name M1, Joswiack said, 'I think the name M1 makes a lot of sense as a chip for the Mac. Since the introduction of the A chip for the iPhone and iPad, Apple has been the name of the chip. I've been trying to adopt something meaningful to Apple, 'he said, citing the use of an' H 'for the headphone chip. In addition, the name 'M1' has the advantage of being able to clearly inform the user that the 'M2' and 'M3' chips will be developed in the series in the future.

The M1 chip, the first Apple Silicone, will be available in three products: the MacBook Air , MacBook Pro , and Mac mini . The Mac mini has a unique position in the lineup, but given that the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro have exactly the same chips, how to distinguish them is a headache. ..

Federighi says that 'heat capacity' is the key to this. The MacBook Air has a fanless structure, but the MacBook Pro uses a cooling system with a built-in fan called 'active cooling.' As you can see from the graph of CPU and GPU performance (vertical axis) and power consumption (horizontal axis) of the M1 chip, the performance of the M1 chip improves as the power used increases. As more power is used, more heat is generated by the chip, which allows the M1 chip to perform better on the MacBook Pro, which has a better cooling system than the MacBook Air.

Apple has announced that it ' expects two years ' for a full transition to Apple Silicon. The two-year transition period means that Macs with traditional Intel processors will continue to be sold. In response to The Independent's straightforward question as to whether there is demand for Macs with Intel chips that are expected to become extinct in the future, Joswiack said, 'Macs are in the best year ever.' In the fourth quarter of 2020, Mac sales increased by about 30% year-on-year.

In addition, Federighi says that Macs with Apple Silicon and Macs with Intel chips will follow different paths, and Macs with Intel chips will not be left behind. 'These are both Macs and run on macOS. The release of the latest version of macOS, macOS Big Sur, is great for all Macs,' Federighi said. Both Macs have the same OS and the same. Claims to run the app.

Apple is confident in chip migration because it has a track record of doing the same in the past. In 2005, Apple migrated the processors on Macs from PowerPC to those made by Intel. 'I've seen other people in the industry make similar transitions, but not so well, but we can really complete this kind of transition,' Federighi said. And we know exactly what tools we should create to really make developer development really easy. '

One of the development tools for smooth chip migration is 'Rosetta 2'. Rosetta is designed to make existing apps written for Macs with Intel chips available on newer Apple Silicon-powered Macs. Rosetta, with the same name, played the same role during the last migration. In addition, this Apple Silicon-equipped Mac will be able to run not only Macs with Intel chips but also iPhone apps. It should be a really great transition for developers as they can release their apps for multiple platforms with just one version.

However, Macs with Intel chips and Macs with Apple Silicon behave the same at the same time, so chip migration may not be as exciting. When The Independent asked, 'Isn't the transition boring?', Joswiack paraphrased 'boring' as 'seamless.' 'We will start the transition to Apple Silicon with the M1 chip, and I think the M1 chip will be a tremendous foundation for the transition,' Ternus said.

Apple announced macOS Big Sur at WWDC 2020. Experts pointed out that Big Sur has redesigned its buttons larger than ever before, bringing it closer to operating systems like the iPhone and iPad. As a result, it was predicted that Apple Silicon-equipped Macs would turn into touch-enabled Macs like the iPad. However, in reality, such a Mac has not been released. Federighi was wondering 'why?' About the fact that many users expected a touch-enabled Mac when Big Sur was released.

Apple said of the M1 chip, 'You can immediately feel the difference from the moment you start using it,' and the battery performance has also improved, so you can use it all day like the iPhone. Claim. The benchmark score of such an evolved M1 chip is summarized in the following article, so please check it if you are interested.

Benchmark of Apple's original SoC 'M1' chip will be released, what is its ability? --GIGAZINE