Mark Roulo (nothanks.delete@this.xxx.com) on September 23, 2013 7:38 am wrote:
> Keep in mind that it is very unlikely that Apple with have an ARM chip that
> is *performance* competitive with Haswell (or what follows) for a long time.
>
> Do you expect Apple to attempt to "migrate" Macintosh customers to a slower platform?
>
> What would Apple's selling point be: Now, lots slower than
> the competition *AND* you can no longer dual-boot Windows?

Single-thread cpu performance is not the same thing as system performance. And
Apple are selling a system-level user experience, not cpu benchmark numbers.
If they can build a cheap reasonably-fast 64bit ARM core, and then put the money
and silicon they save into having a better GPU, higher-resolution display, and
SSD instead of 5400rpm disk, then it seems to me they having something that competes
tremendously well against a $600 Wintel laptop for a) web browsing, b) watching video,
c) word processing, d) sitting in Starbucks running on battery.

The fact that they can tweak the OS to match their hardware also buys back some of what
they may appear to be lacking in raw hardware speed.

I don't know whether this is the future of the Macbook Air, or whether it would be
some new product in the gap between iPad and MBA. But a reasonably-fast 64bit ARM
core opens up some interesting possibilities. [Of course the Windows Surface debacle
might indicate that you need to tread carefully in trying to invent a new product
category between tablets and thin&light laptops ...]