Apple stopped M2 chip production over low MacBook sales as Samsung preps the new OLED Air display

[Redaktion]

Apple reportedly took the unprecedented step to idle its MacBook M2 processor production for two months as the nosedive in computer demand was sharper than expected. The M2 chip is at 50% production rate now, and a future OLED MacBook Air with Samsung screen won't come to the rescue any time soon.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Apple-stopped-M2-chip-production-over-low-MacBook-sales-as-Samsung-preps-the-new-OLED-Air-display.705148.0.html

[S.Yu]

LG's making iPP screens? Does this mean they're gonna be WOLED?

[NikoB]

Apple, as I wrote, if it wants to crush the x86 market, it needs to stop playing the close ecosystem and start selling its processors and laptop building kits to other manufacturers. So they will expand the production of their processors and logic by an order of magnitude, receiving at least 50% of the x86 market. And then the chain reaction of the collapse of x86 will begin...

[NikoB]

Just one question - why didn't Apple buy AMD in time? It suggested itself 5 years ago and even 2 years ago...and after this, Intel would not fight with its gasket from antimonopolists - AMD, but with Apple, and on two fronts at once - x86 and arm.

Maybe the fact is that Apple would have been denied a takeover, despite a lot of money, precisely because AMD is a shadow and Intel gasket from antimonopolists, and not a real independent company, and only therefore the only one who has all the x86 patents remaining on the market, except for Intel?

[thadec]

@NikoB

Apple has - depending on the quarter - 5% to 10% of the PC market. Since 2019 it has been going back and forth with ChromeOS on which will be the decided #2 to Windows in market share, with ChromeOS actually leading macOS (and by a noticeable margin) for most of that time, and this despite ChromeOS having 80% of its sales in North America and Japan and its having almost no sales in the desktop form factor (and none at all in the ultrabook, workbook or worstation ones). The idea that Apple was ever going to crush Intel or x86 was ridiculous. Similar to iPhone and iPad users, Mac users are in a bubble. They believe that Apple's market share and influence are far higher than it actually is.

[Ish]

@thadec

Where are you getting this figures from?

Every source I've checked for desktop OS market share (not mobile) has Windows ~75%, macOS ~15%, Linux ~2.5%, ChromeOS ~2.5%, ~5% unknown, etc.

[NikoB]

I don't understand, what does ChromeOS have to do with it, if we are talking about selling laptops/PC based on its chips and logic sets with MacOS or other OS, if we port them to their hardware?

Obviously, today Apple is the absolute technological leader in the world, but it does not use these and did not even try to buy AMD, although it costs several times less than Apple has money in its accounts ...

Having received licenses for x86 after the takeover of AMD, it will be able to work on 2 fronts at once - against Intel and gradually expanding its influence in the Arm systems market.

The chances of Intel in such a case to get out and not go bankrupt would become increasingly illusory.

Although Intel is essentially already a semi-state company, because. asked for and received subsidies from the US authorities, thereby admitting defeat in the global market.

[Neenyah]

Obviously, today Apple is the absolute technological leader in the world,

April 1st was literally two days ago.

[NikoB]

The first of April only for Intel/AMD is a day of fools who are long gone but still dominate the market by inertia. But it won't be for long...

[Neenyah]

The first of April only for Intel/AMD is a day of fools who are long gone but still dominate the market by inertia. But it won't be for long...

No, no, all good... I'm just referring to your "absolute TECHNOLOGICAL leader in the world" part which itself is pretty funny considering that they can't even manufacture a keyboard that won't break in two years. And to say that Apple is leading anything tech-wise, when there is just Formula 1 for example where bleeding edge in technology is pushed far beyond of what Apple is even capable to imagine is just comical.

[Ayoh]

Apple buying AMD? what a stupid idea. What would apple gain from this? Apple can already design leading edge CPU and GPU's in house. What can AMD give apple that they don't have already? the only reason would be maybe if AMD still had their old foundary business and if it was leading edge but this is not the case.

[Neenyah]

Apple can already design leading edge CPU and GPU's in house.

Some of you are really borderline trolling at this point. One can't run any relevant professional engineering software (such as ABB Automation Builder) on M1 and M2 chips. They run perfectly fine on x86. One can't even run CAD because Autodesk (and other CAD devs) is making it only for x86.
 
Apple is primarily focusing their products on content creators, not engineers, so creators with music, photography, video editing & production and so on... And then in that intended M1 & M2 purpose that "leading edge CPU and GPU" gets absolutely destroyed by a fu*king i5 + RTX 3050 at the same price. True leading edge, yeah 😂

Here, watch it yourself: PC vs MAC for the SAME PRICE - Which is better for VIDEO exporting? youtube.com/watch?v=_D0K3-uZMyY

[NikoB]

Apple buying AMD? what a stupid idea. What would apple gain from this? Apple can already design leading edge CPU and GPU's in house. What can AMD give apple that they don't have already? the only reason would be maybe if AMD still had their old foundary business and if it was leading edge but this is not the case.

You are either dyslexic or you are clueless. I wrote - buying AMD will give Apple all the x86 patents at once and allow it to deal with Intel once and for all. But then again, it strange behavior of cowardly bosses leads to the fact that Intel again. and even with government subsidies will rise from the ashes. And this cannot be allowed, we need a second powerful player in the x86 market, which AMD cannot be by definition, because. is Intel's antitrust slicker, as can be clearly seen by her snot chewing, on purpose.

Apple, on the other hand, is independent and the best thing it could do a couple of years ago was to absorb AMD. A breakthrough for it would be huge in all directions, taking into account AMD's developments and the pool of patents.

Apple bosses don't even have the smarts to start selling their SoCs and logic to them to other manufacturers in order to expand the Arm base and develop software for it as much as possible, regardless of it. That would increase the sales potential at times. Like when it happened to x86 in the 80s. But there is no longer a person with the same level of risk as Jobs, although he himself preached totalitarian restrictions and a closed ecosystem. Now everything should be the opposite - open to everyone. Then Apple will quickly become the main processor manufacturer on the planet, and Intel will go into oblivion.

[Ayoh]

Apple can already design leading edge CPU and GPU's in house.

Some of you are really borderline trolling at this point. One can't run any relevant professional engineering software (such as ABB Automation Builder) on M1 and M2 chips. They run perfectly fine on x86. One can't even run CAD because Autodesk (and other CAD devs) is making it only for x86.
 
Apple is primarily focusing their products on content creators, not engineers, so creators with music, photography, video editing & production and so on... And then in that intended M1 & M2 purpose that "leading edge CPU and GPU" gets absolutely destroyed by a fu*king i5 + RTX 3050 at the same price. True leading edge, yeah 😂

Here, watch it yourself: PC vs MAC for the SAME PRICE - Which is better for VIDEO exporting? youtube.com/watch?v=_D0K3-uZMyY

You are confusing obviously different concepts here.
There is a difference between software support for different instruction sets and processor performance.
There is a also difference between outright performance and performance per watt.

The reason engineering software is not supported on Mac Arm chips is because historically most dedicated engineering software is only released for windows x86, and the engineering mac user base is very small. Apple does not care about that market segment, they care about creators as you pointed out.

They are also focusing on performance per watt (PPW) in the arm systems, which is absolutely leading edge compared to any x86 chip on the market. The PPW compared to Intel chips is about 3-4x better on M1/2. Before anyone mentions Cinebench which notebookcheck insist on using for their flawed efficiecny tests, it is not a fair test for any ARM architecture chip (be it from apple or qualcomm) as it is derived from x86 code base. you can read more here from an industry CPU expert Andrei Frumusanu: CAN'T POST LINK AS NEW USER

You can also read a detailed review focusing on industry gold standard SPEC cpu benchmarks where the apple ARM chips are absolutely industry leading. e.g.
CAN'T POST LINK AS NEW USER

With regard to your video, the intel+nvidia gpu performance is generally comparable to the m2, however the power draw is probably 5-10x lower for the m2. The M2 form the Mac mini runs at generally the same speed in a fanless macbook air laptop while providing long batteyr life. The desktop CPU and GPU obviously cannot do this. This should tell you something about who has leading edge chip...

Apple could scale the performance up with high clock speed like Intel is forced to do, however this would come with significant loss in efficiency, and increased power draw.

[Ayoh]

Apple buying AMD? what a stupid idea. What would apple gain from this? Apple can already design leading edge CPU and GPU's in house. What can AMD give apple that they don't have already? the only reason would be maybe if AMD still had their old foundary business and if it was leading edge but this is not the case.

You are either dyslexic or you are clueless. I wrote - buying AMD will give Apple all the x86 patents at once and allow it to deal with Intel once and for all. But then again, it strange behavior of cowardly bosses leads to the fact that Intel again. and even with government subsidies will rise from the ashes. And this cannot be allowed, we need a second powerful player in the x86 market, which AMD cannot be by definition, because. is Intel's antitrust slicker, as can be clearly seen by her snot chewing, on purpose.

Apple, on the other hand, is independent and the best thing it could do a couple of years ago was to absorb AMD. A breakthrough for it would be huge in all directions, taking into account AMD's developments and the pool of patents.

Apple bosses don't even have the smarts to start selling their SoCs and logic to them to other manufacturers in order to expand the Arm base and develop software for it as much as possible, regardless of it. That would increase the sales potential at times. Like when it happened to x86 in the 80s. But there is no longer a person with the same level of risk as Jobs, although he himself preached totalitarian restrictions and a closed ecosystem. Now everything should be the opposite - open to everyone. Then Apple will quickly become the main processor manufacturer on the planet, and Intel will go into oblivion.

And what exactly is the benefit for apple to have x86 patents? their whole product line up is ARM. ARM also allows for significantly better performance and user experience; better performance per watt, long standby, instant on, scalability from phone to desktop etc. x86 is worse at all of this and unlikely to get drastically better.